Transcript:
Transcript: Episode 20
[00:00:02.140] - Oliver (Host)
Welcome back to another episode of English and Beyond. This is an intermediate to advanced-level podcast for learners of English as a Foreign language. If there's anything in this podcast that you don't understand, as always, you can access a transcript for free at www.morethanalanguage.com. First off, I wanted to welcome some new listeners to the podcast. Now that I'm in Valencia, I've become really interested in where some people are listening from, geographically. Firstly, it's quite interesting for me that one country that consistently tops the table of listeners is Germany, where I used to live: Vielen Dank fürs Zuhören - ich hoffe, dass euch der Podcast gefällt! But it's also interesting to see where very few listeners come from. Unsurprisingly, a few places contribute just a single listener. So if you're my only listener from Terrebonne, Quebec, or Kabul, Afghanistan, thank you very much for coming and listening.
[00:01:10.580] - Oliver (Host)
I recently recorded an episode of this podcast in which I interviewed my ex partner. In the end, I'm not sure whether I'm going to use this episode. I really enjoyed this unusual experience, but I felt that it didn't work very well as an episode of the podcast. As an observation on relationships, I found it personally pretty interesting, but I'm not sure that you guys would agree.
[00:01:36.250] - Oliver (Host)
But one of the things that we discussed was the fact that when a romantic relationship ends, you often lose contact, not just with your ex, but also with the friends of that person and with their family members. In particular, I mentioned that I used to find it a real shame that I obviously didn't speak to my ex's mother anymore. I do have her number still, actually. But it would be extremely odd for me to give her a call, especially after almost a decade of not having spoken to her at all. One of the people I was talking to about this topic was actually my current mother-in-law, and I felt very strange talking to her about it. It felt almost like some sort of cheating, some sort of betrayal, to tell my current mother-in-law that I missed my ex's mother. But we got to talking about her experience with her mothers-in-law and that relationship in general.
[00:02:35.060] - Oliver (Host)
I've had three long term relationships and therefore three mother's in law. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't really call these women my mother-in-law. As implied by the in-law part of the name, this is really a name reserved for this relationship when you are married to your partner. However, it is often used informally to refer to the parents of boyfriends and girlfriends and not just married spouses. The mother-in-law, in general, has the reputation, at least in the UK, of often being the bane of a married woman's life, the "bane" meaning a cause of great stress or annoyance. This stereotype, I think, is based on the slightly misogynistic idea that women can't get along, but to be completely honest, I've also seen quite a few examples in my own life of definite tension between my friends and their mothers-in-law, not just women, but also men. I guess to an extent this is natural. It's probably quite hard when someone comes into your child's life and suddenly becomes a big factor in their decision making. I think this issue is actually very complicated and really much more controversial than it seems at first sight. The question is, why do mothers-in-law have the reputation of a difficult relationship with their daughters-in-law, but not their sons-in-law to the same extent? I think that this is partially because the daughters, the wives, when they have their own children, often want to be near their own mothers to make it easier to get their help and support, which might involve moving away from the son's family.
[00:04:18.330] - Oliver (Host)
My mum always said to me that she was quite pleased that I was gay in this respect. I think it's not a very politically correct thing to say, but she's always said to me, "If you have a straight son, when he gets married, you feel a little bit like you've lost your son a bit because you're no longer the most important woman in his life. In contrast, with a gay son, you actually gain a new son, his partner." My mum and César get on really well, I think, but we'll talk more about that in the interview section today. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to explore the relationships that we have with our mothers-in-law in this episode, and as I said earlier, I have had three.
[00:04:59.510] - Oliver (Host)
My first relationship lasted 3-4 years, but I never really got to know this mother-in-law. My boyfriend hadn't come out of the closet yet, so although I did get to meet her, it wasn't a frequent occurrence, it didn't happen very often. We had met, my boyfriend and I, as students at the University of Oxford, but he was from Manchester, in the north of England, so I only ever saw my mother-in-law when I went to visit my boyfriend during the holidays.
[00:05:32.010] - Oliver (Host)
I remember once coming into the house and striking up a conversation with her. She said to me, "You know, you don't need to run off upstairs straight away," meaning that I didn't need to avoid talking to her in the kitchen or living room and didn't need to hide away in my boyfriend's bedroom as soon as I came into the house. I helplessly said that I just had to follow my boyfriend as he hurried me out of the room. Little did she know, I would have loved to stayed and chatted with her. I felt like her saying this to me was a tacit acknowledgement of my relationship with my boyfriend. That is, she was saying that she knew that we had a relationship without actually having to put it into words, and she was letting me know that it wasn't a problem. However, his discomfort with the situation meant that she and I never had a chance to get to know one another properly. This meant that I never got the stereotypical experience of leafing through his baby photos or hearing embarrassing stories from his childhood.
[00:06:35.170] - Oliver (Host)
With my second boyfriend, it was a different story, though. This boyfriend was actually also a little uncomfortable with being gay, but he was very relaxed about me spending time with his family, thankfully. He was from Sheffield, also in the north of England. Whenever I went to visit him in his hometown, I loved spending time with his family. The first time I met his mum, I loved her immediately. She was such a sweet, kind-hearted woman, and I think she was just as excited to meet me as I was to meet her. This ex-boyfriend had never brought anyone home before, and I had never spent time with a boyfriend's mum, so it was a novel, a new experience for us both. The first time I went to the house, she had prepared an amazing meal, but one quite far out of my usual comfort zone with regard to the food. She had cooked a rabbit pie from scratch. I had never eaten rabbit before, and I can honestly say that I had never had any desire to do so at all. But this was my new mother-in-law, so it was vital for me to finish my plate, to eat all the food she served me. For dessert, we had another pie, this one, a blackberry one, in which she used blackberries that she herself had picked that day in the wild.
[00:07:55.200] - Oliver (Host)
My other main memory of her was when I came down to breakfast one morning. She on the phone to some utility company, something like the phone company or the gas company. She was complaining about the service, and it was so interesting to listen to her. She was one of the sweetest people I had ever met, and she was faultlessly polite while complaining, but she showed that beneath that sweet exterior, she had a backbone of steel: she wasn't backing down, she wasn't going to surrender, and I found the contrast with her usual personality very amusing.
[00:08:30.110] - Oliver (Host)
César's Mum, my third mother-in-law, is actually quite a similar person. If you speak Spanish, you can actually listen to César's Mum tell some of her own life story in his intermediate-level podcast, episode number 52, but I think she is a woman who has shown incredible resilience. She and I are very different people, and I really respect her. Even though life has been tough on her at times, her life has sometimes been hard, she maintains an amazing open-mindedness. I think that if I had experienced half of what she has, I would be much more cynical; I would trust people and what they say much less. But she remains very trusting and always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.
[00:09:16.470] - Oliver (Host)
I actually had a very similar culinary experience, an experience with food, with César's mum as with my second mother-in-law. When I first met her, she served me a traditional paella, including, again, rabbit, but this time with snails. With my previous experience with boyfriend number two, I knew I could handle the rabbit, no problem there. But snails? This was a genuine challenge, but I did my best and managed to eat a few.
[00:09:46.790] - Oliver (Host)
Those are my three mothers-in-law, and I have been very lucky with them. This isn't always the case. I have a couple of friends whose relationship with their mothers-in-law is one that could only be described as tense. Every interaction is an exercise in biting their tongue, that is, not saying what they really think and choosing their words very carefully. Some people I know do everything they can to avoid all interactions with their mother-in-law. Sometimes it drives people to move city or even country. The issue with this, however, is that it can possibly make the situation even worse. If your chief complaint with your mother-in-law is that you find her overbearing, i.e. too ready to involve herself in every aspect of your life with her child, trying to escape can actually make her hang on tighter.
[00:10:39.070] - Oliver (Host)
I occasionally ask you, listener, to contact me with your thoughts on a given topic. Well, this is a good one. Do you have a mother-in-law that you have had an incredibly positive relationship with? Or are you one of those people who has fled to the other side of the world to avoid their mother-in-law? If you don't mind me using your stories, I might be able to use them in a future episode if you want to practise your writing in English. Don't worry, though. I'll change enough detail so that it will be totally anonymous, just in case your mother-in-law listens to.
[00:11:13.850] - Oliver (Host)
Okay, César, César, how many mothers-in-law have you had?
[00:11:18.790] - César (Guest)
Hi, Oliver. I guess only two. My ex-boyfriend's mum and your mum.
[00:11:27.300] - Oliver (Host)
We can call him the Italian.
[00:11:29.460] - César (Guest)
The Italian. My Italian ex-boyfriend.
[00:11:34.580] - Oliver (Host)
Exactly. So that you can differentiate: mother-in-law number one and mother-in-law number two.
[00:11:40.520] - César (Guest)
Well, the first one was interesting, the fact that I didn't speak the language, I didn't speak Italian. She didn't speak Spanish or English, so we couldn't really communicate well. It was all about smiles and gestures and doing weird things with our hands. She's lovely. And her name-
[00:12:03.470] - Oliver (Host)
Well, as far as you're aware, maybe she was saying terrible things about you, but with a nice smile. She was saying, "You'll never be good enough for my son."
[00:12:12.550] - César (Guest)
No, she's actually a lovely woman. In fact, you were talking about the relationship with your mother-in-law once you broke up with your ex-boyfriend. I actually met my mother-in-law in Valencia, because she visited Valencia, after breaking up with her son. I was actually dating you already. I met her and we went for lunch. I spoke some Italian by then, so it was better.
[00:12:41.610] - Oliver (Host)
I remember that, actually, because when I was talking to your mum, your mum is - her reaction was so typical of your mum, because I was saying to her, "Oh, I miss this woman. She was a really nice woman." And your mum was like, "Well, call her! If that's what you need, you should call her." I was like, "Well, I don't know that my ex, even though I have a good relationship with him to the extent that, you know, he agreed to be interviewed for this podcast, I don't think it's really fair on my ex or his new boyfriend for me to be calling my ex-mother-in-law." And your mum said, "No, if that's what you need, you should do it."
[00:13:19.670] - César (Guest)
Your feelings go first.
[00:13:21.480] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, exactly. "Your feelings are valid." But no, I won't be calling my ex mother-in-law, although maybe my ex will send this to her.
[00:13:30.584] - César (Guest)
Maybe!
[00:13:30.890] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah. But actually, having now been in the other position where you have gone for lunch with your ex's mother-in-law while going out with me, I think it's a nice thing for you to do. Not a horrible thing, to me.
[00:13:43.710] - César (Guest)
Yeah, of course.
[00:13:45.420] - Oliver (Host)
Would you say, in general, that you've had a good relationship with mothers-in-law? How would you define that good relationship? Because I know already you're going to say, yes, you have.
[00:13:55.400] - César (Guest)
Yeah, exactly. Because your mum is listening, right? So I've got the pressure of...
[00:13:59.620] - Oliver (Host)
There I realise that, that is that. That is true. But I also know anyway that you like her and she loves you. So I know you have a good relationship with her, and you've just told me that you have, that you had a good relationship with the first one.
[00:14:13.150] - César (Guest)
Well, I think it just, it boils down to being respectful and, you know, respecting boundaries. I feel like, and I'm not going to talk about mother-in-laws, specifically, but in-laws, some of them are not very respectful and they try to...
[00:14:31.450] - Oliver (Host)
As in the parents-in-law or you mean the children-in-law?
[00:14:36.020] - César (Guest)
Parents-in-law.
[00:14:36.500] - Oliver (Host)
Okay.
[00:14:37.200] - César (Guest)
Like trying to make decisions for their children and hence the son-in-law or daughter-in-law being like, "Why is this person trying to modify our plans or shape my partner's journey in life?"
[00:14:55.270] - Oliver (Host)
Because that does happen a lot, doesn't it?
[00:14:57.610] - César (Guest)
It happens a lot, yeah.
[00:14:58.710] - Oliver (Host)
And it's weird to me, I suppose, because I've never had to deal with anything like that at all. So, for example, we're back in Valencia now, and I know that your mum is really happy to have her son back in Valencia. But, but at no point during the last eight years that we've been going out, has she ever put any pressure on us to move here. Your mum really wanted us to come here, but she never... Well, she let that be known, but with absolutely zero expectation or pressure that we would come. Do you know what I mean?
[00:15:37.850] - César (Guest)
Yeah, of course.
[00:15:38.610] - Oliver (Host)
She's always been extremely respectful. I've never had to deal with a mother or father-in-law other than that, other than one who has been very respectful. But I have seen other people, as you say, where they get involved in incredibly minor details in their children's lives, like suggestions about what they should be buying for their house, their mattress!
[00:16:03.160] - César (Guest)
Or which house they should be buying as well. Which is good, to have advice. Like, I think if we ever buy a house together, I would like to receive feedback and recommendations from our parents because they are more experienced buyers, I suppose. They have done that in the past.
[00:16:22.030] - Oliver (Host)
But I think with all four of ours, your parents and my parents, they would give that feedback very happily, but only if asked.
[00:16:30.010] - César (Guest)
Yeah, I think that's the massive difference that they don't get involved too much unless they are asked, which is good.
[00:16:39.460] - Oliver (Host)
Sorry, I've got one more thing to say. It's a little like no one ever considers themselves a bad person, right? I'm sure that no one ever considers themselves a difficult parent-in-law, a difficult mother-in-law, a difficult father-in-law, so - oh, maybe, listener, if you consider yourself an intentionally difficult mother-in-law or father-in-law, maybe you can send us an email and explain why, why you do it.
[00:17:06.800] - César (Guest)
I guess people who are very noisy with their children's life is because they...
[00:17:12.860] - Oliver (Host)
Do you mean nosey?
[00:17:13.970] - César (Guest)
Noisy.
[00:17:14.550] - Oliver (Host)
Noisy or nosey?
[00:17:16.720] - César (Guest)
Noisy.
[00:17:17.630] - Oliver (Host)
Noisy is that they make a lot of noise.
[00:17:19.780] - César (Guest)
Nosey.
[00:17:20.420] - Oliver (Host)
Nosey, yeah. They put their nose into their children's business. Noesy.
[00:17:25.510] - César (Guest)
Exactly. Thank you. It's very early today. We're recording very early. I think these people might justify their behaviour saying, "Well, it's for the best. I know better. I'm older, I've got more experience." Also, it depends on the case as well. I will never be a father-in-law, probably. But I guess if you see your children being dragged into decisions they don't really want to make, or you see how their partners are completely abusive and they're gaslighting them all the time, in that case, I guess you should, you should intervene, right? But with other big decisions in life, like moving countries, having a baby, career changes, I think it's good that they might put their two cents, make their contributions, but not trying to modify people's plans.
[00:18:24.790] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, they might put in or add their two cents, which, yeah, it, kind of, as you have made clear, means to give their opinion. I think that's a really interesting point, actually, because I suppose it's very easy for my mum, for example, or my dad to be very relaxed about what we do together, you and I, because they really, really like and trust you, and you're not in any way abusive. But it's true, actually, that it must be incredibly hard to watch your child marry someone that you think is just a terrible person, which obviously does happen. So that is an interesting point. I think that there's something you've been wanting to say for ages.
[00:19:09.690] - César (Guest)
Yeah, it was something about the relationship with your mother. That, as you said, is very easy as well. She's very respectful. And also I feel quite at ease when we are at her house and we stay maybe for a few days a week. I enjoy having conversations with her and getting to know you as well a little bit more through her stories.
[00:19:39.790] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, I think that is a really nice aspect of having a good relationship with the mother-in-law because you see things from a totally different perspective. And actually, that can be really quite confusing because you yourself might have a particular perspective on your history and your personality, and then your mother or father has a completely different idea.
[00:20:01.630] - César (Guest)
Absolutely.
[00:20:02.440] - Oliver (Host)
So I remember with my second boyfriend that we would have this recurrent argument about a particular political issue and I remember going to his house, and he had always presented his life or his, kind of, history in a certain way. Then his mother, when we were talking about this, was like, "That's not at all the truth." Then it was one of those moments where my head, kind of, swivelled, like, turned slowly to look at my then-boyfriend I was like, "Really? Interesting." Because I'd heard so strongly for so long.
[00:20:35.860] - César (Guest)
That happened yesterday, by the way.
[00:20:38.490] - Oliver (Host)
With me?
[00:20:39.320] - César (Guest)
With me, because I think it was in the previous episode where I said, I was kind of joking I said that I didn't like the concept of VIP.
[00:20:48.580] - Oliver (Host)
Oh, yeah.
[00:20:48.960] - César (Guest)
"Very Important Person". I've ended up in in Valencia signing up to the gym and the plan is called VIP, but just because it includes some massage that I actually need because I got a back issue. You were mocking me all the time.
[00:21:05.810] - Oliver (Host)
I was because I've been teasing you for the last few days about this attitude, about not liking the VIP experience, which doesn't totally chime with the César that I know.
[00:21:18.210] - César (Guest)
I didn't say I don't like the VIP. I don't like the name.
[00:21:21.560] - Oliver (Host)
The branding. Apparently, you don't like the branding, which I think is a bit of a an illogical position to take. And then I found it very funny to find that, yes, signed up to a gym without telling me with not just the VIP mentality, but also specifically the VIP branding. So yes, when our friend revealed that, I did find that very funny.
[00:21:43.870] - César (Guest)
But I'm going to suggest to the gym that they change the name of that package and call it, like, Premium Package.
[00:21:50.810] - Oliver (Host)
I think that we probably should stick to our actual topic, though, because we can't make every episode about...your political hypocrisy. So, why do you think that mothers-in-law have such a bad reputation? I'm thinking in films and books, it's a little bit like the stepmother - the stepmothers -
[00:22:11.880] - César (Guest)
Yeah, it's true.
[00:22:12.570] - Oliver (Host)
For absolutely ages, thousands of years, have had a terrible reputation. Why mothers-in-law as well?
[00:22:20.410] - César (Guest)
I don't know, actually. I guess there's sort of some misogyny in it as well. Some reality, because I think women, traditionally have been more involved in the upbringing of their kids. So I think that might have an impact as well. So we will see in the future if maybe we will talk about difficult in-laws in general, regardless of their gender.
[00:22:48.390] - Oliver (Host)
It's true, actually, because I think I've had a better relationship with all of my mothers-in-law than my fathers-in-law. And it's not that I've had a bad relationship with any of my fathers-in-law, but the relationship over the three relationships has been a little bit more indifferent.
[00:23:03.180] - César (Guest)
They were just less involved.
[00:23:05.390] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, they were not as interested in knowing about me. I think that they were relaxed and thinking, "Well, you know, if my kid has a happy relationship with that person, great, that's it." So I had nice lunches and chats and everything, but I think there wasn't the same level of an attempt to build a relationship, that has been the case for all of the mothers and all.
[00:23:31.790] - César (Guest)
I'm going to bring up this topic with my dad today. It's his birthday today. We're going to go for lunch. I'm going to say, "Why are you not involved with Oliver?"
[00:23:40.350] - Oliver (Host)
"Oliver says you're very indifferent."
[00:23:43.290] - César (Guest)
Your dad, actually, he's always really... I think he likes engaging with me and talk(ing) about Spanish history, which, by the way, he knows more about it than me.
[00:23:55.300] - Oliver (Host)
I mean, he's brought up the Spanish Civil War with you a lot of times.
[00:23:58.910] - César (Guest)
I've done a few episodes in Spanish about that on my Spanish podcast, actually.
[00:24:04.200] - Oliver (Host)
Since, I mean, because I think when he first did it, you didn't know that much, right?
[00:24:08.120] - César (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, now I'm way more knowledgeable.
[00:24:10.730] - Oliver (Host)
So now you can go and have a really good chat with him about it. Yeah, I remember my dad sometimes in restaurants would lean over and ask you very specific questions about the Spanish Civil War.
[00:24:22.240] - César (Guest)
So talking about this narrative about mother-in-laws being horrible. In Spanish, actually, I don't know if it's only the Spanish from Spain, but we use the term "Matasuegras", which literally means...
[00:24:36.650] - Oliver (Host)
Mother-in-law killer.
[00:24:37.440] - César (Guest)
Yeah, mother-in-law killer. And it's, you know, this thing where you are in a party or New Year's Eve, you use this party blower. How do you call it?
[00:24:48.930] - Oliver (Host)
Like, I would call it some sort of party whistle where you've got... Everyone in the UK will know what they are, where you've got that rolled up plastic. You blow into it and it fills the plastic. Like, it unrolls the plastic roll as you blow into it. And then it makes this horrible noise.
[00:25:10.120] - César (Guest)
Yeah, and you can scare someone and kill your mother-in-law.
[00:25:14.860] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, of course. It's funny, obviously, it crosses international boundaries, you know, unites all cultures, this difficult relationship with mothers-in-law.
[00:25:27.470] - Oliver (Host)
So, César, thank you very much for talking to me today about mothers-in-law.
[00:25:31.400] - César (Guest)
Thank you, Oliver.
[00:25:32.500] - Oliver (Host)
Listener, if you have any of your own stories, as I said, please do feel free to send them to me. It would be lovely to hear from you. Please do rate, subscribe, follow, and pass on the podcast to anyone else if you've enjoyed listening to it. Have a lovely week and see you next time.
[00:25:51.730] - César (Guest)
Bye!
[00:25:52.280] - Oliver (Host)
Bye-bye.
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